Trying To Scream Underwater
by Beth Pryor
Summary: Kelly continues his difficult transition back to 51 following Shay's death, and Casey calls upon an old friend who makes an appearance in an attempt to bring Squad 3's Lieutenant back to the people who care about and depend upon him. Spoilers for S3E3-4 but presents a non-cannon back story for Kelly including the introduction of an OC.


**Title:** Trying To Scream Underwater

**Author:** Beth Pryor

**Rating:** K+

**Universe/Timing:** This contains spoilers for Season 3, falls somewhere around episode 3 or 4 and presents a non-cannon back story for Kelly.

**Summary:** Kelly continues his difficult transition back to 51 following Shay's death, and Casey calls upon an old friend who makes an appearance in an attempt to bring Squad 3's Lieutenant back to the people who care about and depend upon him.

**Disclaimer:** Chicago Fire doesn't belong to me. I'm not making any money here.

**A/N:** I'm new to writing in this fandom but have enjoyed reading some really great stories here. I love this show and especially the character of Kelly Severide. A few months ago I started thinking about this storyline but it really didn't fit into place until Shay's death. I hope you'll read and review. The title is inspired by P!ink's "The Great Escape."

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><p>Trying To Scream Underwater<p>

Gabby Dawson looked up as the door opened and was immediately struck with a sense of déjà vu. She knew she knew the woman now just inside the door, glancing from side to side, but she just couldn't place her. She dried a glass as she watched for a second longer.

Matt Casey regarded his fiancée, as she'd stopped speaking when the door opened behind him. When she went back to work on the glass in her hands without returning to their conversation, he followed her eyes across the bar to the entrance and the woman standing there. In a moment of recognition, he stood. "No way."

Kelly Severide also sat with his back to the door. He was working on his third or fourth whiskey making him totally oblivious to the scene behind him. He didn't see Casey moving from his barstool toward the petite but curvy woman with the dark curly hair. He also didn't realize that when they broke their embrace, they headed directly toward him.

"Kel?" Her voice cut through the fog he continued to pretend wasn't all around him. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew that voice, smooth and lively with an almost musical quality to its laughter. He remembered the first time he'd heard it come out in a nervous stammer when he'd picked her up on his 16th birthday, the night they'd first slept together in the backseat of her mom's Taurus.

He turned and blinked a couple of times. Molly's hadn't been his first stop tonight, and he'd been attempting to maintain so that Dawson would keep serving him. But now, his head was most definitely playing some nasty tricks. Wasn't it? But there she was with Casey, hair shorter than he'd ever seen on her and about 15 pounds heavier than the last time they'd met, 2, no 3 years ago. It looked good on her. She'd always been too skinny.

"Samantha Jaye?" he finally managed, sliding off of his own high stool and grabbing the table to steady himself before he reached forward to hug her. "What, why, what's going on?"

She ran a hand through her hair. "I was in the neighborhood."

"Of Molly's?" He shook his head. "Who called you?"

"I just heard, Kel. I'm so sorry."

"So you came to Chicago's, to this bar?"

She shrugged. "Yeah. Why not?"

"You didn't have to."

"I know that, but I wanted to."

Casey stood back, observing silently. He knew Kelly's reaction here was crucial. If this woman couldn't get through to his friend, he wasn't sure if anyone would be able to help.

Kelly sunk back onto his seat. "You didn't have to," he echoed a bit more softly. He added, almost as an afterthought, "But thanks for coming."

"You want to get out of here?" They wouldn't get anywhere in a bar.

"I've been staying at 51."

"We'll go to my place." She smirked at his stricken look. "Don't worry. I have a hotel room. I won't make you go to my mom's house."

He managed a little grin. "She might have a heart attack."

Samantha Jaye Severide Hawkins smiled back at her ex-husband and first love. "I know, thus my decision to go to a hotel in my hometown."

Kelly stood again, more slowly this time, and tested his balance. Better. "I'm gonna hit the head first."

Once he'd walked out of the main room, Sam turned to Casey. "He looks bad. Has it been like this all along?"

Matt exhaled heavily. "He's been back about a month, but things aren't any better. Worse maybe."

She gave him a curt nod. "I'm glad you called."

"I didn't know if I should, and I didn't mean that you needed to come, but I think it's good that you did."

"I don't know if there's anything I can do, but I'll try." She paused. "It's been a long time since we've really been in each other's lives. Or even talked."

"I know, but I'm guessing you know him as well as anyone, and I had to do something."

Sam nodded. "You did. And you above all would know what he needs."

Casey shook his head. "Darden would have been better at this than me. He always had this power over Kelly when he got into his moods."

Tears formed in Sam's eyes as she remembered their mutual friend. She wiped them away and sniffed. "Kelly's got you guys, and that's his family, the people he needs around him." She paused. "And I'm so sorry I haven't seen you since Hallie's service. And I wasn't here for everything with Heather and the boys."

He placed a hand on her arm. "It's okay. It's all okay now."

She dropped her eyes to her shoes. "Still." She looked up again, "But you and Dawson, huh?"

"Did I tell you that?"

"No, but it's obvious. She's glancing over here every two seconds between serving drinks."

A grin tugged at the edge of Casey's mouth. "Want to say hello?"

"Absolutely."

They headed over to the bar where Gabby extracted herself from a clingy out-of-town accountant who'd taken a wrong turn on the way back to his hotel.

"Sam!" she exclaimed as they took seats across from her. "I can't believe you're here. I didn't even recognize you when you walked in. Your hair is great!"

"I'm sure I'm about the last person you expected to see here tonight."

"One of them, yeah. How's Pittsburgh?"

"It's okay. I like my job; the hospital is great, but I miss my family and friends here. And it's no Chicago, but they do serve fries on everything. Like salads."

Gabby reached over and squeezed her hand. "They have kids with cancer here, too, you know."

"Yeah. I think I took care of most of them in fellowship. It was time for a new scene in that respect."

Kelly arrived behind them. "And Phil, how's he?"

"It's Paul and you know that," she said without turning. "You ready or do you need to settle up?"

He pulled some bills from his wallet and placed them on the bar. "Ready."

She stood. Matt pulled her into a quick hug, and Gabby rounded the bar to join him. "It's so good to see you, Sam," Gabby reiterated.

"Thanks, guys. Goodnight."

Sam followed him to the door and pointed him toward her rental car. She chirped the doors open and he climbed into the passenger seat. A few minutes later, they valet parked the car at the entrance to her hotel and headed up to the room.

"And Phil is okay with all of this?" he asked as she opened the door and pushed through into the double room.

"I'm not sure about him, but Paul, my husband, is fine with me doing whatever I see fit. Even when it comes to you."

Kelly collapsed on the bed closest to the window and lay there for a second before he sat up. "Is there a mini bar?"

"I think you're just right like you are."

He crossed his arms and sat back against the headboard. "You don't know what I need. Or what I'm going through here."

"Hmm," she noted. "No. I've never been through anything like this. I have no idea what you're going through."

He wiped his hand across his face. "I obviously didn't mean that."

"I know, but you're spending an awful lot of time feeling sorry for and thinking about yourself. The others are hurting, too. They need you to be able to start to move on and remember Leslie in the best way possible, by doing the job that she loved, that you all love."

He turned toward her, eyes boring into hers. "Is that how you could go back in there?"

She came around the second bed. "What?"

"When you changed your residency from Emergency Medicine to Pediatrics, I never understood how you could go back in that NICU."

She sighed, crossing her own arms. "It wasn't the same NICU."

"But there were babies like her there."

"It was a long time ago, Kelly. I had to move on with my life."

"So did I, but she was our daughter." He sat up straighter, his voice louder than he'd intended.

Fire rose in her eyes. "And I knew she wasn't there, but when I stood in that ER and heard they were bringing in a fireman, every time I was afraid it was you."

"Sam." He swung his legs over the bed so he was facing her.

She rolled her eyes in a dismissive gesture. "I know they weren't all you, but they were your friends."

"They aren't all my friends."

"Colleagues, peers, whatever. Clearly you know what I mean."

"I miss her."

Sam wasn't completely sure if he was talking about Shay or their daughter Willow, who had been born extremely prematurely at 24 weeks gestation nearly 15 years earlier. She'd lived a little over a week before she succumbed to an overwhelming bacterial infection. Kelly and Sam had been 18.

Sam's Catholic mother had insisted on marriage upon the discovery of her daughter's pregnancy, and Kelly had agreed. They stayed together for almost five years afterward while Samantha completed college and Kelly finished the Fire Academy before moving on to Squad. The summer before she started medical school, they realized that they had, predictably, transformed themselves into completely different people than they had been just a few years earlier. The decision to part proved amicable and mutual. Samantha remained close with Andy Darden's wife Heather and had introduced her medical school classmate Hallie to Matt Casey.

"Missing Shay like this made me realize that I don't think about Willow every day anymore." He swallowed hard and looked up at her. "Is that horrible?"

She sat across from him on her bed. "I don't see how I would have ever been able to function if I did." She was familiar with this particular personal struggle. "I think it's how it has to be."

"And I wasn't this non-functional then, either."

She moved across the space between him and took a seat on his bed. "We were kids, Kelly. We had our whole lives ahead of us. It changed the trajectory of both of our lives." She sighed deeply. "It was a tragic waste of a beautiful life, but sometimes I thank her for that, for being strong enough to let us not be her parents."

His fingers found hers and laced between them. "She'd be learning how to drive now."

Sam wiped a tear with her free hand. "I'd have been a wreck about that, you teaching someone, especially our daughter, how to drive."

"We haven't talked about her in a long time."

"We haven't talked about anything in a long time."

A long pause followed. He finally asked, "Pittsburgh? Paul?"

"Fine, both of them."

"I'm sorry."

She shifted just slightly so they were closer to facing each other. "For what?"

"For ruining your life."

"You didn't ruin my life, Kel. You just took me on a little detour while I was getting where I needed to be."

"Paul's a good guy." The three of them and Heather Darden had met for dinner prior to Sam's wedding last year.

She reclaimed her other hand from him but wouldn't let her eyes meet his as she spoke. "I do love him."

"He just loves you more."

She shrugged. "I think maybe that's okay as long as it's the man and not the woman."

Kelly silently held her gaze for a moment before he dropped his head into his hands. "What am I going to do?" He sighed. "I can't even go back to our place."

She rubbed his back. "It's pretty simple in theory but amazingly difficulty in practice. You'll find a new place, you'll get up every day and go to work and interact with the people there, and eventually you'll stop telling yourself to do those things."

"Sometimes I forget, and then I remember and it nearly takes my breath away."

Sam nodded. "I've heard some people say that grief comes in waves. That's been my experience. Yours too, I think. Remember Christmas 2002? Not a good day for you."

Sam's sister's little girl, Madison, had gotten her first two-wheel bike. Kelly stayed drunk the entire day. Sam feared he'd passed out when he didn't turn up at the dinner table, but instead she found him sobbing in the backyard.

He nodded. "I don't think it had ever hit me like that. Or since." His voice broke. "It was the streamers on the handlebars. I wanted our girl to have those, too."

She squeezed his hand. "I know. I did the same thing when Madison showed up at my mom's in her ballet recital costume about a year after that. I had to leave."

Kelly nodded. "It hurt too much to think about it every day, and I found over time that I could put it away. And when I realize that's what I'm doing, I feel like such an awful person. I don't know how I'd even begin to do that with Shay, or if I'd even want to."

"I don't know what to tell you Kelly other than you have to figure out what works for you, but whatever you've been doing so far is not an option."

"Drinking mainly."

She rolled her eyes, more playfully this time. "Right. And you're not 23 anymore. You're almost 35." She reached up to touch his greying temples. "It's okay to be an adult without being old."

He shoved her lightly. "You know, they have kids with cancer here, too."

Sam laughed as her hand dropped to his shoulder. "Gabby said the same thing. So she and Casey are for real?"

"They're engaged and living together."

"How's she doing?"

"She's good. She's starting as 51's new candidate in a couple of weeks."

"What! I had no idea. That's great."

"It is. And it helps that she has a lot on her mind."

"That too," Sam agreed.

"Samantha Jaye, how is it that you're always around when I need you?"

She crinkled her nose. "I don't think that's necessarily been true, but I'll do what I can."

"I'll get through this, won't I?"

"You will. But you have to let Matt help you when you need him. It will benefit you and make him feel useful, too."

She had a valid point there. He nodded as he considered what Matt and Gabby had to be going through as well. "I'll try."

She slid over to her bed. "You should get some sleep. You look like hell. There's an extra toothbrush in the bathroom."

"Thanks." He stood and walked across the room but turned back to her. "You look happy."

"I really am."

"And you want to tell me something else, but you're worried somehow."

He saw the flush rise in her cheeks. "I never could hide anything from you."

He leaned against the door jamb. "So tell me. I'm a big boy."

She took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant. Not very, about 8 weeks, but yeah."

"That's so amazing." He looked genuinely happy for her and only a little nostalgic.

She tugged on a stray curl. "It kind of is."

"What was Paul's reaction?"

"He's over the moon."

"As he should be. You make beautiful babies," he managed, wiping tears from his eyes as he walked over and kissed her forehead before pulling her into tight hug.

He'd find his way back. She was sure of it, although it would take time. She nodded as she wept for him and for the lives ended too soon as well as the prospect of the new one growing inside her. After a moment, she collected herself and managed a smile.

"I really do, don't I?"

FIN


End file.
